Your Right to Know

A coalition pushing to expand Medicaid to 275,000 poor uninsured Ohioans cleared another hurdle
in its effort to force the General Assembly to approve the proposal or send it to the statewide
ballot for voters to decide.

The Ohio Ballot Board today found the initiated statute consisted of a single proposed law,
and not multiple ones.

The five-member board led by Secretary of State Jon Husted voted 5-0 to approve the proposed
"Access to Healthcare Act."

The decision clears the way for Healthy Ohioans Work – a coalition of businesses, health-care
providers, unions, advocates for the poor and others – to collect the signatures of 115,574
registered voters to place the issue before the General Assembly.

If lawmakers don’t approve the measure or take no action after four months, supporters must
circulate petitions with the same minimum requirement – 3 percent of voters in the 2010
gubernatorial election – to place the proposal before voters on the November 2014 ballot.

Last week, Attorney General Mike DeWine certified that a submitted the required 1,000
signatures from registered Ohio voters and their summary of the proposal was "fair and truthful."

Healthy Ohioans Work launched the statutory initiative campaign earlier this month amid
growing concern that lawmakers wouldn’t act on a plan unveiled last spring by Gov. John Kasich to
expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Under the proposal, eligibility for Medicaid would be expanded to those with incomes up to
138 percent of the federal poverty level or $15,415 a year for an individual. Those gaining
coverage would be poor adults, ages 19-64, without dependent children. About half are employed in
low-wage or part-time jobs.

The federal government will pay expansion costs for three years beginning Jan. 1 when most
Americans must have health coverage or pay a tax penalty, and 90 percent or more after that,
bringing an estimated $13 billion to Ohio over the next seven years.

Republican legislative leaders say they continue working on Medicaid “reforms,” but have been
unclear about whether that includes expanding eligibility.